Three hours before the first game Sunday, I walked past the long lines of fans waiting for the Coors Field gates to open. Even on this day, I was stunned that so many of them — a majority, perhaps — wore No. 17 Todd Helton jerseys. The scene would be similar 90 minutes later, when I made a circuit around the concourse.

These people didn’t want to be hit over the head with how bad the Rockies are.

A little later, they would stand, and remain standing, through the pregame ceremony, as the Rockies officially retired Helton’s number, eventually uncovering it on the second-deck facade in right-center field.

These people didn’t want to be lectured that they gullibly were supporting a substandard product, whether on this day alone or in general.

Helton’s 17 will be spotted by, among so many others, the 7-year-old kid from Casper seeing his first major-league game and the Phillies’ rookie outfielder called up from the Lehigh Valley IronPigs earlier in the week. It is not as historically rich as the Monument Park in the old and new Yankee Stadiums or the numbers on the balcony facade in Fenway Park, but it is part of one of the game’s rites. Even for the players.

Two hours before the ceremony, Helton admitted he used to look at the retired numbers himself as he made the major-league circuits.

“Absolutely, I think everybody does,” he said. “Every player looks up there.”

Helton brought up St. Louis, where the retired numbers include Ozzie Smith’s 1, Stan Musial’s 6, Dizzy Dean’s 17 (the only other 17 retired in major-league baseball), Lou Brock’s 20 and Bob Gibson’s 45. True fans of the game could go to San Francisco, spot No. 24 and see Willie Mays making the catch with his back to home plate at the Polo Grounds. Go up on a wall in baseball, and you also become part of a museum in the mind.

“You’re playing the game, trying to figure out which number’s which, which number’s which guy,” Helton said. “Baseball’s a fairly slow game, so you have plenty of time to look.”

For one afternoon, it was time to celebrate something done right, to salute a star player the Rockies drafted, developed and retained through his major-league career. For a terrific five-season stretch in his late 20s, Helton was among baseball’s elite hitters, and his career numbers — .316 average, 369 home runs and 1,416 runs batted in — are impressive … anywhere.

Yes, his back issues and his big-money, long-term contract watered down his marketability later in his career, and perhaps even diminished his reputation and legacy, so he was a career-long Rockie almost by default. If his salary hamstrung the Rockies, the constraints were largely self-imposed in a game minus a salary cap. During his turn at the podium microphone during the pregame ceremony, Helton declared, “I am proud to say I am a Colorado Rockie for life.”

At Coors Field, Helton’s No. 17 now is next to Jackie Robinson’s 42 and late team executive Keli McGregor’s initials. It’s hard to imagine Helton having company soon. That would require Troy Tulowitzki (now 29 years old) and/or Carlos Gonzalez (28) sticking around and remaining healthy enough to have sufficiently extended and productive careers here.

“There obviously are some deserving guys, but (being) the first one is obviously special and I’m honored,” Helton said. “I just came to work every day. That’s all I did, really, showed up every day and played as hard as I could. … I don’t know if they can unretire a number. Let’s hope they can’t. It’s always going to be cool, so hopefully kids can walk in and be able to see 1-7 up there and realize it was my number and I wore it proudly for many years.”

I pointed out that the Broncos unretired Frank Tripucka’s No. 18 — with his permission — to be able to give it to one of Helton’s friends, a fellow former Tennessee quarterback named Manning.

A graduate of Wheat Ridge High School and the University of Colorado, former Denver Post writer Terry Frei has been named a state's sportswriter of the year seven times -- four times in Colorado and three times in Oregon. He's the author of seven books, including the novel "Olympic Affair" about Colorado's Glenn Morris, the 1936 Olympic decathlon champion; and "Third Down and a War to Go," about the 1942 football national champion Wisconsin Badgers and the players' subsequent World War II heroism.

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